Sunday, July 8, 2012

Currant Madness

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During the past couple of weeks, we've been picking currants planted throughout the development.   We have six bushes ourselves, which have yielded much more than I had expected. The red and white varieties seem to ripen all at once, which makes the picking process much easier.

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The black ones on the other hand seen to ripen individually, so instead of plucking whole clusters, we picked these one by one.  I've never picked coffee before but I imagine it's a lot like this.  And unlike the white and red ones, which have a sweet/tart taste, the black one are much more interesting.  They are less juicy than the others and have a flavor that's musky and almost spicy. 

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Just to give you a sense of scale, the Red Lake currants on the right are somewhat smaller than the unknown red variety on the left, but I think they have more flavor.

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And while the black currants are more time consuming to pick, the red and white ones require more processing time.  But once you got into a groove, striping the berries seemed like therapeutic work. 

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Just part of the harvest - we picked enough for several batches of wine, including one for each variety.  I think I'll also try making wine from a blend of the three.  And there will still be enough left over for jellies, syrups, cordials.

12 comments:

  1. Some of my fondest memories are eating currants in summer in Germany while hiking through the woods. Yum! I'm very jealous of your wonderful currant harvest :)

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  2. You have a great harvest of currants, and I love the photographs. I remember eating black currants when I was a girl in the UK, but I think the climate is too hot for them up here in Queensland.

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  3. Oh how lovely! I'd love to have all those red and white currants (black are too strong for me).

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  4. Oh wow. I just made zucchini bread and I wish I had those to throw into the batter. They would be so good.

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  6. Holy Cats! That's a lot of currants!

    (I got a truly brutal sunburn, picking currants in rural New York.)

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  7. Nice berries! I don't think I have ever tried Currants before.

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